


The Way

by hellkitty



Category: Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2012-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 07:59:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/583075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/pseuds/hellkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>little ficlet for tf-rare-pairing, prompt 'this way'.  Kinda fluffy schmoop. Eh, it's Monday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way

Gasket looked up from the corner of his hideout, where he was squatting, trying to patch the sheeting of an old distilling system, startled by the sound of a mech’s footplates skidding against the plascrete as he whipped around the corner.

The strange mech threw himself against the wall, spaulders scraping.  His vents heaved. “You didn’t see me. You don’t see me.”

Gasket rose to his feet, the plastic sheet forgotten in his hands. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” The optics darted wildly around the derelict shop Gasket used as a small hideout: a small pile of litter in one corner, the half-disassembled still, the pile of loose bricks, as though looking for a place to hide.

It didn’t’ take a detective to realize something was wrong.  “Tell me. I can help.”

“Nothing I can’t handle.” 

Sure.  Gasket reached over, taking the stranger’s arm. “Let me help.”  

“Don’t need help,” the mech said, but his tone was wobbly, unconvincing.

The mech resisted Gasket’s touch, and almost managed to pull away. Gasket’s hand  was suddenly slick. Siphoners. No wonder the newcomer looked scared.  And now that Gasket was closer, he could feel the tremble through the other’s systems.   “Then let me help as a favor. To me.” He flashed a smile.

The optics were wary, skimming over his face. “Don’t even try to sell me out,” he said, trying to sound dangerous, even as his knee stabilizers trembled.

“I wouldn’t,” Gasket said, ducking his head down, making sure he caught the newcomer’s red optics with his own blue.  “Please. This needs some attention.” He traced his thumb over the upper arm plating.

“It’ll heal.” 

“It’ll heal faster with some patch tape,” Gasket said.  It was just common sense.  Even the mech could see that. Gasket could see him wavering.  “My name’s Gasket, friend.”  He held out his other hand, offering, asking.

“…Drift,” the mech said, reluctantly, his optics flicking down to his damaged arm, the inmost energon still seeping through the torn hose. 

There was a sudden noise in the corridor outside, pounding, running feet, muttered curses, followed by a hissed ‘lost him.’  Gasket looked at Drift, seeing the panic writ stark and large on his face, on every limb, fear and anger and shame commingled.  Gasket moved, stepping to one side, between the mech and the buckled doorframe. 

A tense moment, as the footsteps neared.  Siphoners were tough and roamed in trained packs, Gasket knew. But they didn’t like to take on numbers. There was safety in being together.  It had worked before, it would work again.

Drift’s vents were nervous, almost shivering, optics glued to the narrow slice of space he’d dodged through. Gasket’s hand squeezed, soothingly, over the other’s dented armor. 

The footsteps moved past, slower, as though searching. But definitely moving on. They both waited, almost barely daring to move, until their ventilations were the loudest noise. 

Gasket stepped back. “I have patch tape.” Repeating the offer, repeating Drift’s freedom to choose. 

A nod, and a step forward off the wall.  “I’ll pay you back.” The ‘somehow’ went unspoken.

Gasket recognized the attempt at dignity, what little shreds of it could be grasped for in the gutters.  He nodded. “If you want,” Gasket said, guiding Drift back into the abandoned shop.  “This way.”

[***]

Gasket lifted the sheet of plasmetal that blocked the door to the farthest back room, and bent to pick up a parcel he’d placed on the floor, ducking into the gap. He nodded at the two mechs in the outer room, in some signal, before slipping into the darkness.

Drift lay, curled on his left side, his entire frame curled around his injured arm, as though trying to protect it. The gesture was vulnerable, almost spark-breaking, especially in contrast with the sullen, almost aggressive way he’d let Gasket patch the wound.  It had  been an ugly one—apparently Drift had torn free from the siphoners, the catheter needle gashing the hose as he moved. Gasket wished he had something for the pain, but Drift had seemed content enough with the patching. 

And now, resting, his engine idling softly.  Gasket stepped around the balled-up frame, dropping down to one knee.

Drift looked…relaxed, the tension softened from the edges of his mouth. If you looked hard enough, it was almost possible to believe that Drift, at some point in his life, had smiled.

‘Another of your little wastrels,’ Brakeplate had teased, outside. A wastrel, just as he’d been.  There was always strength in numbers, Gasket told himself, told them, and it was true. They were safer, in numbers. And they could share resources, help each other out. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

And this wasn’t much, but something—the small ration of energon he’d shared out from what Chaser and Brakeplate had brought back. 

He tapped Drift on the shoulder, drawing back, ready for the feral flinch, the lowlight-red optics snapping open, the entire body abruptly coiled and tense.  

“It’s me,” Gasket said, his brass face plate curving into a smile. “I have some energon for you.”

“For me.”  The optics blinked, drowsy and uncomprehending for a klik, as he pushed up onto his elbow, taking the small vial with one hand.

“If you want it,” Gasket said. But he knew, no mech turned down fuel in the gutters. Even so it was a sign of trust that Drift raised the vial’s mouth to his own, taking the slow, limited sip of someone who’d gone too long without but was afraid of overindulging, and purging.

Drift handed the vial back, mouth in a quivery sort of tentative smile, and the hand that had held the vial reached back behind Gasket’s helm, pulling him into a kiss, pulling him down on top of the other mech’s frame, the thighs parting around his hips in offering. Gasket could still feel the heat of the other’s autorepair against him, smell the cleanser he’d used to clean the wound before patching. And he knew, suddenly, what this was. He didn't need to see the faded triwaves on the shoulder to tip him off. 

He broke from the kiss, arching back, his one hand stroking the line of the other’s cheekplating, shaking his head, gently, even as the kiss’s memory trembled on his lip plates.

“You could,” Drift murmured, “if you wanted.”

“I do want to,” Gasket said, bending to rest his helm on Drift’s crest. “But not like this. Not as some transaction.”

“I don’t have anything else to offer,” Drift said, his hands falling off Gasket’s shoulders, looking somehow even more lost than before.

“You do,” Gasket said, shifting his weight off Drift, on the ground beside him. His body still felt the electric excitement of the kiss, the body against his.  But Drift’s trust was more important than a fleeting pleasure of his body.  He nuzzled against the other’s helm, a friendly touch, just to enjoy touch, and felt the startled throb of the EM field against him, before it softened, wrapping tentatively around him. “And if you want, in the morning, maybe can start discovering it.”


End file.
